Small Talk
by liliaeth
Summary: Giles returns, he and Buffy have a talk


Subject: Small talk   
Author: Lore  
Rating: gen  
Disclaimer: don't own, please don't sue  
Pairing: none  
Summary: Buffy tells Giles  


"Spike has a soul now."  
  
Giles stared at her in dumbed shock. How had this happened, how, why?  
"Who gave it to him? Did ... no.... how?"  
  
"I'm not sure, way I get it, he got it himself."  
  
Giles just stood there, his mouth wide open. How could she possibly stand there? Just stand there and say something like that as if it didn't matter. Like she was just saying that the clouds had cleared, or that ...  
"Spike got himself a soul?"  
  
Buffy just nodded, going on with shuffling through a batch of papers.  
"After... after he tried to rape me. He felt, I guess he felt guilty about it, so he did, he got the soul to make sure it didn't happen again."  
Her voice broke for a second.  
"He has a soul now, and he's a bit insane from being in the basement."  
  
"Insane."  
He was too baffled to say anything more. His entire world had just turned over. Didn't she get that? A vampire had chosen to reclaim his soul. A vampire had felt guilt. A vampire.  
  
He remembered the first thing he'd learned about vampires. A vampire is not a man, it's a demon inhabiting a dead body. They may have the looks, the memory of the person they took over, but they're not ... persons, incapable of love, incapable of caring. Thousands of years of well held believes and one single stubborn mule of a vampire scattered them all.  
  
"Did you say he felt guilt?"  
  
"Yeah why?"  
  
He blatantly wished he was still wearing his glasses instead of these stupid contacts, one hand unconsciously went to his head, the other grabbing for a handkerchief.  
  
"Before the soul?"  
  
"Yes, I've already said that like a hundred times. It's not like I'm taking him back over it. It doesn't change things. It's just Spike."  
  
It doesn't?  
It changed everything!!!  
He turned away from her for a second, not willing to show her how much her behavior stunned him. He remembered his sweet Jenny, how she smiled at him, her hand on his, her lips touching his. He remembered seeing her body in his bed, feeling her dead skin as his hand touched her, he remembered...  
  
He remembered Angelus returning, Buffy hiding the bastard from him. He'd wanted to stake him, no! He'd wanted to torture the bloody bastard, he'd wanted to tear him apart in a bout of carnage that would have made Willow's latest bout on the dark side look like a child's tantrum.  
  
Yet he'd let him go.   
  
He'd allowed the monster that had murdered his Jenny to go free.   
Why? Because of a curse, a curse that forced a demon to the side of good. Because of a soul.  
Because it mattered.   
  
Yet now she, her of all people, dared to tell him it didn't matter?  
The bloody frecking hell it mattered!!!  
  
"Buffy, do you even realize... This is the first time in the history of mankind, the first time ever... that a vampire chose to be good. Do you... have any idea how major this is."  
  
He turned back to Buffy, looking her in the eye with a red raging dissapointment.  
  
"But Angel..."  
  
"Angel was forced into a soul Buffy. Underneath the brooding, and the guilt and all the prancing around like a poof, he's still the same vampire that he was before he regained his soul. The same monster that killed Jenny, that murdered and tortured thousands of people.  
The second he found out that someone was trying to return his soul, the second... he killed Jenny over it.  
  
Do you even realize how little a tie holds down the bonds that keep that monster under wraps?  
  
Yet Spike... He Chose for this soul. He willingly sacrificed everything he knew, everything he was, everything Buffy. And why? For guilt.   
Vampires don't feel guilt. It's why they're killers. It makes it easier for them to kill. They were born to cause chaos and destruction, yet Spike..."  
  
Buffy just stared at him, still not understanding, or more likely refusing to understand.  
  
"This is probably the single most important event to happen ... in the history of mankind. A vampire chose to get a soul. "  
He continued softly  
"A vampire chose.  
And if even one vampire can make that choice then... God help us all."  



End file.
